GUEST COLUMNIST: One more bang for the Undergraduate Assembly

The Undergraduate Assembly had its annual power trip last Sunday, a meeting where other student government groups must show up and succumb to the fiduciary will of our student senate. Boy, did we ever pull a fast one on them, expanding our discretionary fund at the request of the InterFraternity Council. But with all this talk about "loopholes" and alcohol, I thought I would clear a few things up. The discretionary fund is a pool of money used for the UA to co-sponsor events with groups like the United Minority Council, Graduate and Professional Student Assembly, Drug and Alcohol Resource Team and even the InterFraternity, Panhellenic and Bicultural InterGreek councils. The $30,000 was just an expansion of that. Every penny from that fund has to be approved by next year's UA. All that the budget amendment did was empower the body to provide more services to the student body as the year went on. If that means supporting the innovative Greek initiatives, so be it. Those initiatives, by the way, were a huge step for the 30 percent of our undergraduate population that is Greek to be taking, and the UA should and does support such positive change. Actually, you are already close enough to administrators to know that "the UA has lost credibility with [them]." That statement surprised me. I learn a lot from reading your paper. All those open doors I have seen with the administration, including weekly meetings with Rodin, fooled me into thinking that we still did have access. Perhaps I was just imagining things. I think that this whole supposed "Greek slant" thing will surprise a lot of administrators if they read this, too. I bet Jack Shannon didn't realize that there was a "Greek slant" to the work we did on vending. I bet Miki Farcas didn't realize there was a "Greek slant" to the Penn Consumer Board. I bet Bill Canney didn't realize that there was a "Greek slant" to the Dining Advisory Board and Maureen Rush doesn't realize that we are going to put a "Greek slant" on the police award. John Fry is thinking to himself right now, "No wonder Noah wanted fraternity houses in Sansom Common instead of having a bookstore. Asking for XandO was one thing, but fraternity houses? yeah, that is a Greek slant." Thanks a lot, DP. Now all administrators know about all these things. We had them fooled, but I guess now the party's over, and we didn't even get to charge.